Planning board recommends abolishing Board of Adjustment and moving quasi-judicial duties to City Council

The Planning and Zoning Board on Dec. 3 recommended that City Council approve Ordinance 09-2025 to reassign the duties of the Board of Adjustment to the City Council and abolish the BOA.

Staff framed the change as a council directive intended to consolidate quasi-judicial land-use decisions under a single elected body to reduce inconsistent interpretations and eliminate duplicate hearings. "This was also a city council directive, and it's positioned with the goal of consolidating quasi-judicial land use functions under the city council," the Planner said.

Board members supported the idea in principle, noting the BOA seldom met and that it had been difficult to keep its membership full. One member said the BOA had met only twice during the staff member's tenure and observed that frequent vacancies limited the board’s usefulness.

Members also raised drafting issues and substantive points for staff revision. Several typos in the packet were flagged for correction. A longer discussion focused on variance expiration: the current code gives standalone variances a 12-month expiration while site-plan permit approvals now run 24 months. The board discussed aligning timelines so that variances approved in conjunction with site plans run concurrently with the site-plan duration; staff agreed to draft clarifying language that variances approved with site plans will expire with the site plan, while one-off variances would retain the shorter period.

Outcome: The board voted unanimously to recommend the ordinance to City Council and asked staff to correct typographical errors and to align variance expiration language with the site-plan approval process. Staff said the ordinance will go to City Council for first-reading consideration on Dec. 16.

What’s next: Council will consider the ordinance at its Dec. 16 meeting; if adopted, appeals of council decisions would be to the circuit court under Florida law.